The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for making three-dimensional garments.
Garment manufacture involving the assembly of two or more components to form a three-dimensional garment is typically carried out by manual sewing. Attempts have been made to automate the process, but such automated methods of garment manufacture are typically costly and often inefficient. Attempts to automate the manufacture of durable garments, such as boxer shorts and swimsuits, have conventionally used sewing technology and have turned out to be infeasible. Automated methods of making absorbent garments often use frames around which diapers and training pants are assembled, leading to difficulty in stretching and holding three-dimensional garments while bonding and trimming the garments.
Furthermore, absorbent garments are normally produced along one product line and durable garments worn over the absorbent garments are normally produced along a separate product line, and are rarely, if ever, found in the same manufacturing facility. Having separately manufactured absorbent garments and durable garments results in considerable production facility costs and also leads to a considerable amount of work for a caretaker, namely laundry in addition to changing soiled absorbent garments.
There is thus a need or desire for an effective automated method and apparatus for manufacturing three-dimensional garments.
There is a further need or desire for an automated method and apparatus for manufacturing garments that can function as absorbent garments in combination with outer wear, in lieu of absorbent garments and separate durable garments.
In response to the discussed difficulties and problems encountered in the prior art, a new process and apparatus for making three-dimensional garments has been discovered.
The present invention is directed to a cost-effective method for making three-dimensional garments. The garment can be a disposable infant garment with a preformed trunk or skirt and a strip of waist elastic bonded to the waist area of a training pant-like insert. By altering the materials or product design, the method of the invention can be used to produce garments for a wide variety of uses, including disposable everyday wear or swimwear for incontinent children or adults, disposable trousers or skirts for children or adults, or even durable clothing or swimwear, such as shorts and skirts without an insert, shorts or skirts with a non-absorbent liner, or non-elasticized garments. The concepts in the method of the invention can be used to assemble three-dimensional garments other than shorts and skirts.
The method of the invention combines waist elastic, an insert, and a skirt or three-dimensional trunk into a finished garment by bonding these three elements together at the waistband area of the insert. The garment is bonded and trimmed on an expandable/retractable fixture. The expandable/retractable fixture is transported between process areas by a loop conveyor system or other transport device. The process loop is the heart of the production machine. Other sub-assembly loops can include an insert loading loop and a shell loading loop. The process loop moves in a continuous motion through an insert loading area, a waist elastic application area, a shell loading area, a waist bonding area, and optionally, a folding and stacking area.